Sickert In Dieppe

Pallant House Gallery, North Pallant, Chichester, Saturday, July 4, to Sunday, October 4

TODAY Dieppe is generally regarded as the first or last stop on a Newhaven ferry trip to France – similar to Calais as a place you stop briefly for cheap booze before moving on.

But when artist Walter Sickert was active at the turn of the century it was a bohemian hangout, popular for its beach and gothic architecture - welcoming the likes of playwright Oscar Wilde, illustrator Aubrey Beardsley and writer and artist Max Beerbohm.

This new exhibition across five rooms in Pallant House shows the influence the seaside town had throughout Sickert’s artistic career.

“When I first came up with the idea of the exhibition I thought it would be like Sickert In Venice,” says curator Katy Norris, referring to the Dulwich Picture Gallery’s critically acclaimed 2009 exhibition which looked at Sickert’s life between 1895 and 1905.

“Sickert In Dieppe spans his full professional career - from his early formative years studying with Whistler and meeting Degas, the transitions he went through in style, and into older age when he was living with his second wife in his 60s.”

Sickert’s time in Dieppe is generally associated with his paintings of the town’s gothic architecture – in particular the church of Saint Jacques.

“In the exhibition we have put them into one room rather than having random architectural paintings throughout his career,” says Norris. “With the studies of Saint Jacques he went around each corner and found different aspects of the church. He found this way of making constructed drawings, squaring them up and putting them into his paintings. It was a very deliberate exercise working on his painting technique.”

This method of working from drawings and creating bigger paintings in his studio – something he explored under the advice of Edgar Degas, who he befriended in Dieppe - contrasted with the “en pleine air” method employed by the Impressionists, and which he had first followed as apprentice to James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

“There are some small works on panel which he painted in front of the motif which he did from 1885,” says Norris. “He would stand side by side with Whistler and paint almost identical scenes. Through spending time with Degas he learned about draftsmanship and creating a composition.

“Draftsmanship was central to modern British painting.”

As a lecturer at the Slade School Of Art Sickert’s method would have been explored by the next generation of artists. Many of the works in the Pallant House Collection taking on that influence are also on display at the same time as the exhibition – including works by David Bomberg, Frank Auerbach and Celia Paul.

As well as his early development the exhibition includes works by Sickert painted around the time of the First World War, in particular The Blind Sea Captain which was only rediscovered in a private collection in 2011.

“There were letters relating to that painting, which prior to the discovery were associated with a similar canvas,” says Norris. “They never fitted with what he was saying and what the canvas looked like.

“He felt The Blind Sea Captain was a sentimental painting, and didn’t know if he wanted to finish it.

“There are lots of references to the native fishing communities in maritime Dieppe in the painting, and there is a lot of relevance in his finishing painting this figure in 1914 when the future was so uncertain. A lot is up for discussion. It will be exhibited here in public for the first time since 1930.”

After the war Sickert returned to Dieppe with his second wife Christine Angus. But when she died in 1920 he and the town parted ways.

“He would have stayed there painting wonderful landscapes, but when his wife died it changed everything for him,” says Norris.

“The last room of the exhibition sees him falling out of love with Dieppe quite quickly. The subject matter almost goes back to where it started, but you see a change from the glamorous beach scenes to a much more downbeat feeling. The casino was so popular in the 1890s, but in the 1920s the way he handles the subject in The System is much more sinister.”

Open Tues to Sat 10am to 5pm, Thurs 10am to 8pm, Sun/bank hols 11am to 5pm, tickets £10/£6, Tues/Thurs evening £5, under 16s free. Call 01243 774557.